Writings about Education and Life in New England

Over the last week I’ve had the chance to watch some of the world’s best young paddlers. The International Canoe Federation makes it absurdly easy to watch video of the Junior World Championships in Whitewater Slalom almost as it’s happening. Watching these teenagers whip their short boats around, switch hands with their canoe paddles, and finish in under 90 seconds sometimes makes me think I’m watching a different — and far more exciting — sport than the one I “retired” from eight years ago. I must’ve watched four hours of coverage. It was great — mostly.

The only thing wrong was that the United States didn’t do very well. In fact, we were shut out of the medals in both the Under-23 class and in the younger Junior class in all five disciplines. In several of the most competitive classes — such as men’s kayak — we didn’t even qualify a single boat for the finals. In other classes — such as C-2 — we didn’t field a single boat in the entire race. Meanwhile, countries that are a fraction of the size of the U.S. — such as Slovakia or Slovenia — put many more times our number into the race, into the finals, and onto the podium. What gives?

Although the United States has produced some remarkable slalom racers over the past fifty years, this problem is nothing new. As long as we’ve had slalom racers — except for a brief period of all-around dominance from 1989 to 1996 — we Americans have been wringing our hands about why the Europeans are so much better than we are. There have been a lot of causes proposed over the years — lack of funding, lack of infrastructure, removal from the broader boating community. Some in our sport have even, paradoxically, blamed slalom’s inclusion in the Olympics on its decline in popularity. The problem is, most of those smaller European countries face the same issues, and their slalom programs are doing better than ours. So why then?

Do we lack whitewater courses? Please. Our country is bursting with World Cup-quality courses — Dickerson, Charlotte, Oklahoma City, South Bend, Wausau, the Ocoee, and Deep Creek.

Do we lack coaches? Certainly not at the highest levels. Silvan Poberaj and Rafal Smolen are, as best I can tell, still the two heads of the sport, and they’re experienced Olympic guides. They know how to train the best in the world. They know how to win.

Do we lack tradition? Surely not the country of Shipley, the Hearns, and Lugbill — not to mention Clawson, Chladek, Weiss, Evans, Giddens, the Hallers, Jacobi and Strausbaugh, and McEwan!

Do we lack sheer numbers of young people interested in paddling? Are you kidding? Have you been to the Green or the Potomac in the summer?

So what is it? What is the persistent problem that has plagued American slalom racing since the late-90s? Last week, watching these kids at the Junior Worlds one-stroke their way down the Bratislava course in Slovakia, it hit me like a hydraulic to the chest:

How so? It’s simple: if you grow up with hundreds of good natural rivers, with loads of interesting, challenging rapids and beautiful scenery, you won’t be inclined to spend your time looping back and forth on a concrete ditch like Dickerson, or past plastic lego rocks, dodging rafts at a tourist hub like Charlotte. Why paddle 400 yards of class III- at Deep Creek when ten miles of the Upper Yough is a stone’s throw away, thick with camaraderie, running all summer? Why spend your time on class III when you could be running class V? Why do made up moves when there are so many real ones available? Above all — why spend your time training, when you could be doing?

American slalom has faced this challenge for decades, whether we know it or not. There’s simply too much else to do.

My own story is case in point. I took up paddling late, at 18. That fall, as I went off to college in Vermont, I quickly realized that I was going to have to fight the temptation of abundant natural rivers all around me if I was going to keep up with my slalom training. Within a reasonable drive from campus, there were hundreds of natural rivers. Drive an hour and a half I could surf one of the world’s best river waves: Lachine. Fifty minutes south and I could boof my way down the best creek in New England: the Big Branch. Twenty minutes after class I could chase ten friends down the class IV+ New Haven or class V Middlebury. Just five minutes from my dorm I could lap an 18-foot waterfall that ran every month of the year.

So you can understand why forcing myself to do flatwater gate loops that fall was hard — or even driving to a shallow class II slalom race in October like the Farmington when I could have been shotgunning beers and tearing down big, fluffy drops with my college buddies at Moosefest. I probably boated with fifty different guys, a lot, during my first few years of college, and very few of them had ever run a single slalom gate. That’s a change from a generation ago. Today, with short boats and plentiful river access, if you want to get good, you don’t have to run gates. You just need to run rivers. And here in the United States, we’ve got them in spades. They are some of the world’s most famous: the Green Narrows, the Little White Salmon, the North Fork of the Payette, even the Grand Canyon.

On the other hand, how many famous whitewater rivers in Slovakia can you name? What about in France? How about Britain or Germany? The fact is, apart from Corsica or Norway, Europe isn’t really known for its concentration of world class whitewater. Instead, their whitewater sports center around scant resources: the man made rivers like Bratislava, Augsburg, or Tacen that run consistently and that play home to slalom training clubs. It’s only natural that they’ll get more into slalom than we are: there’s simply less to do.

Why else do so many famous European boaters come to the U.S.? You only have to search the latest extreme kayak videos online today to find Europeans like Spaniards Gerd and Aniol Serrasoles screaming down American creeks — the same way that you didn’t have to look far to watch Steve Fisher, Mike Abbott, or Corran Addison on our rivers a generation ago.

And it’s not just that we have the rivers. It’s also that running them is easier than ever. For one thing, the boats today are far shorter and easier to paddle than they were 30 years ago. These boats have in turn opened up a whole swath of new rivers and new freestyle moves. This, tied with a growing number of dam release rivers, has conspired to make the sport easier to get into and easier to get good at. The Internet has made it easy to check online river gauges and to download information about put-ins and takes-outs, as well as to coordinate meetings with new paddlers. All told, it’s way easier to run a wide variety of whitewater rivers than it was 30 years ago, all of which pushes American boaters away from slalom racing and toward recreational river running.

Consider, for a moment, the Tale of the Two Jacksons: Eric Jackson, most famous and visible kayaker of his generation, and his son, Dane Jackson, most famous and visible of today’s.

In the early 1980s, a young Eric Jackson saw U.S. Slalom Team member Hank Thorburn surfing stylishly on the Kennebec River in Maine and caught the racing bug. In 1984, Jackson moved to Brookmont, Maryland, where he lived for the next twelve years, training to make the U.S. Slalom Team. A naturally competitive person, Jackson saw that the one entree into the upper echelon of the sport was through slalom racing. The pinnacle of what he could hope for, he achieved: racing at home in the 1989 World Championships in the United States, and at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona.

Eric Jackson looping a Dancer in Phil’s Hole on the Ottawa in 1984, when freestyle moves were hard! Slalom was the way to go. (jacksonkayak.com)

As time went on, the sport evolved, and Jackson evolved with it, winning the 1993 Freestyle World Championship, and eventually traveling the country in an RV, competing in the ever-expanding network of rodeos and downriver races that spread like wildfire in the late 1990s. Soon he capitalized on this himself by starring in a number of kayaking videos that glamorized these pursuits, starting his own kayak competition series, and eventually his own kayak company, Jackson Kayaks.

On the other hand, his son, Dane Jackson, who is arguably the best all-around paddler of his generation, has hardly seen a slalom course. Where his father spent his twenties chasing a berth on the U.S. Slalom team and found the best competition in officially sanctioned international races against the likes of slalom luminaries like Richard Fox and Scott Shipley, Dane has spent his twenties so far competing in extreme downriver races like the Green Narrows Race as well as extreme slalom races that have come into existence, such as the North Fork Championship, held on the North Fork of the Payette– where he has found competition among guys who have, like him, had little experience in whitewater slalom.

Dane Jackson racing in the North Fork Championship. (https://visitidaho.org/content/uploads/2016/05/leeds-dane-rockdrop.jpg)

When his father first moved to Maryland to train slalom in 1984, river running in the United States, especially in the East, was at a standstill. Rivers like the Green Narrows and my later stomping grounds, the New Haven and the Middlebury, had yet to be run. Rivers like the Upper Yough or the Gauley were popular, but still the province of a handful of experts. Other rivers were hard to catch because you weren’t sure if they had water. It wasn’t easy to meet dedicated groups of expert boaters unless you met them at slalom races or festivals.

By the time Dane came into his twenties, it couldn’t have been easier. Unlike his father, he didn’t need slalom. Nor do most of our young boaters nowadays.

The fact is, just like in skiing, slalom racing is born of scarcity. That’s because, as fun as it is, it’s a training device for running “real” rivers. As such, if you have actual rivers you can train on, you don’t need slalom as much. It’s no surprise that ski slalom has flourished in the eastern United States, where our lack of terrain turns us to new ways to train ourselves and to have fun. It’s no coincidence that our two best skiers of their generation, Bode Miller and Lindsey Vonn hail from New Hampshire and Minnesota — two places not exactly known for bountiful powder skiing. It’s hardly surprising too that the one area in the United States with a consistent involvement in youth slalom kayaking is Washington, D.C. — home to a lot of paddlers, but (especially in the summer), not a lot of whitewater. It’s no surprise that slalom interest is high there.

So it’s my belief that as long as we have so many good, “real” rivers to run, our young paddlers will be attracted river running, not to slalom racing. Their coaches and mentors too will be more apt to drive them to a dam release river to practice eddy turns rather than make the extra effort to hang gates or to drive to shallow, class II slalom races. Our kids will continue to see the Dane Jacksons of the world, plunging down the Green or the Payette, as heroes, not the young up-and-coming slalom racers like Tyler Smith or Sage Donnelly. It was no different when I was coming up. The best two boaters in the United States, in my opinion, in the 2000s were Rebecca Giddens and Scott Parsons. Meanwhile, almost none of my friends had heard of either of them. But they’d surely heard of Tommy Hilleke, Steve Fisher, or Nikki Kelly. Meanwhile, lots of European kids will continue to take their first strokes on man made courses like Bratislava or Tacen, and the older kids they look up to will be the Jessica Foxes or Miquel Traveses.

What does the future hold for U.S. slalom? It’s hard to say. Perhaps someday we’ll go through a slalom renaissance, sort of like the one we had in the mid-1970s or the mid-1990s. Maybe slalom boats will keep getting shorter, to the point that the top racers are basically paddling fiberglass RPMs or Braaaps — so that the gap will close between what racers are using and what regular paddlers are using. Perhaps slalom races will evolve to be held on more popular rivers, doing fewer gates, making it both easier to compete and easier to run these events — along the lines of easier versions of the North Fork Championship. You’re already seeing this in some places, such as a new slalom-style race down the Cribworks Rapid on Maine’s Penobscot River, slated to be held this summer. Will this draw more people into the sport? Who knows?

For the time being I’ll take pleasure in watching the incredibly high levels of skill of talented young paddlers like Fox or Trave — no matter what country they’re from.

33 thoughts on “The Two Jacksons: What Happened to Slalom Racing in the United States?”

Wow—-Thanks for mentioning my daughter, Sage Donnelly, as a slalom racer, not the current Jr. Women’s Freestyle Champion and 3 time podium racer at the GoPro Games Extreme Creek Race-age 13, 14, 16-(missed the race when she was 15) When not in a hole, or an artificial course 5 days from home, she is on some of the toughest creeks in the country, and racing them (Green, NF Championships) when her schedule has an opening. As for USA slalom-the Jr. Team had 5 racers go to finals-5 racers in the TOP 10 JUNIORS IN THE WORLD! Did they medal, no, can they, yes! Our governing body for the sport imploded a few years ago, and our team is completely UNFUNDED-just like freestyle and creeking, but they have prize money (Thanks for the $$$ this year Gopro, Sage and her fx wrist were 3rd in creek and freestyle both) so imagine what could happen if their was support out their to assist with costs. All competitors in the water world in the US have the same problem, but slalom is the only one where you have to pay to paddle ($$$ boats-and Sage does K1 and C1, course fees, coaches, mainly European races) . Maybe we could expand the sport if it didn’t cost individuals and families $$$$ a year to buy boats, train, compete, and hopefully live near a facility and coach, or have a devoted family that is willing to help them. Does the US have tons of awesome rivers…YES! California creeking is home to us, we live in Carson City, NV, and as a family, take advantage of our water, as well as competitions throughout the west, but the lack of racers isn’t due to available water, it is due to lack of funding, exposure, and coaches around the country. What feeds a sport is others infectious desire to share it, and the US only has a few small areas where that opportunity is utilized for slalom.

I would agree with some of this perspective. The author absolutely doesn’t highlight the equipment aspect rendering this discipline quite inaccessible in many ways. The elitism needs to be addressed. So long as we hold the notion that slalom is for slalom boats and slalom boaters, this will drive away kayakers who want to run rivers, who may even want to race, but are basically told they’re not in the same league. Some race circuits, like Butter Cup in the Midwest, are open and accepting to all craft. Slalom is slalom from C1 or OC2 to a Jackson Rockstar. There is absolutely no reason to exclude or even hold the attitude that slalom should be composite K/C boats and everyone else can either get in a composite boat or be discounted in the “other” bucket at the citizens level.

There is another aspect that the author fails to mention: course infrastructure. We can’t hang a permanent course in Golden because it gets torn down. Slalom opportunities in Colorado mostly “dry up” for 8 months out of the year. A slalom race takes a lot of people and tech to organize. Finally, despite being a seemingly simple sport, there is a judged aspect that remains a HUGE elephant in the room. Boats have changed, have become lighter, and technique is amazing. Determining a “touch” remains a nasty stain on some races. Head ducking, too, has put such a burden on gate judging as to render the high levels too much of a judged sport. Gate turning and complex navigation is paramount but it’s the boat that we use to navigate with. When, on any given stretch of water, will I need to pass my head awkwardly to one side and near the water while keeping my boat in the current? There just aren’t that many obstacles that exist naturally to warrant adoption of an odd aspect of gate/river navigation as a mark of excellence. Until they address these issues then I fear slalom will continue to decline.

Hojo, I could not agree more about the head ducking. Jessica Fox’s finals run from last week at the Junior Worlds was case in point. Her head duck of Gate 4 absolutely did not look like a 50 to me, but the judges ruled that it was, wiping out a truly magnificent run. You have to ask yourself: how exactly does this relate to river running? I also agree about the equipment aspect too. This has been discussed for many. many years. When I got into the sport in the early 2000s, we were already at the Riot Disco phase of short playboats, yet slalom boats still had absurdly tiny, wafer thin sterns that protruded out the back like tiny sticks, just so that the boat could make length. What a farce. I thought it was right on when they started shrinking regulation length during my own tenure in the sport, and I’m now thinking it would be good if they kept doing it. As someone commented online, the sport was at its healthiest when Olympic slalom boats were roughly the same boats the average folks were running rivers in.

Hojo, your head duck comment is a valid point… and caused Jessica Fox a 50 in C1. I have a photo I’ll send you, her head and body on one side of the gate, her boat on the other- body and boat need to pass though the gate.

Stephanie, while I agree with many of your points, I don’t appreciate your sarcasm. I admit I was not aware of your daughter’s other accomplishments. I highlighted her slalom prowess because I watched one of her runs on video from last week in Bratislava and was impressed. My intent was to emphasize that American boaters are more likely to be admired for their creeking exploits than for their slalom ones, not to belittle your daughter’s accomplishments or to insinuate that she was not looked up to by other paddlers.

I have always seen international slalom as the model for superior technique and a test of precise maneuvers in whitewater paddling, just as I’ve seen the international soccer as the model of technique and tactics in that sport. Whatever class of craft I hop into, I could do better if I model on the skills of slalom racers and apply exacting focus to the maneuvers with my river running. There is a lot of expense in all sports when it becomes competitive at the international level requiring a national body that invests in the sport from a broad base of membership. That means that people need to see a reason to invest in their membership with that national organization in paddle sport. If the ACA and USCA remain separate organizations, the funding is divided accordingly. Clubs have a reason to join the ACA in order to obtain insurance, certification for their instructors, and a connection to a broad base of paddle craft and interests. What reason do clubs have to join USCA? What reasons do individual paddlers have for joining the USCA if they don’t support instruction, youth program development, or hosting regional and national series of competitive events? The fact that Wausau is close doesn’t matter at all if they don’t get to host races there. Wisconsin has a competitive junior slalom canoeist in Erin Ahatz at age 14, and produced Rebekah Gibbons, but has not national events here. On a local level, I’ve thought about hanging gates at a location where water consistently flows when all other rivers in the area are low, if only to create an interesting activity beyond surfing the same wave over and over again. At the basic level, slalom isn’t very expensive. But there isn’t anything to train for on the local level. And that seems like the crux issue.

David, I’m sorry to hear that it doesn’t sound as though there are hosting races at Wausau anymore. I raced in the Nationals there, and it’s a great venue. They’ve held World Cup races there several times. I agree that it’s hard if there aren’t any local races to train for as well, which is too bad because as I mention in the article, sometimes scarcity of big whitewater is the exact reason that a sport like slalom racing flourishes. And the debate about clubs joining the ACA vs. USACK — and about what USACK does for members — is also a longstanding, if frustrating, one.

I’m going to agree with Stephanie and kudos to Sage and the other US juniors who are an up and coming powerhouse for US paddling– despite the odds. My son at one point aspired to be competitive in slalom and we gave it a go for a bit, but the infrastructure just doesn’t exist in California. He loves slalom and still races when he can because he sees how it improves his moves in harder water.
I’d also say that your generalization about European rivers misses the mark. There is plenty of great whitewater in Europe. But there is also the infrastructure for developing slalom as a sport, especially for youth, barely exists in the states with a few notable exceptions. That’s true of many sports there, unlike the US which tends to invest in football, basketball, baseball nearly to the exclusion of sports which are based more on individual athleticism.

Most Americans don’t understand the culture associated with the sport. Racing does not offer the rockstar success or image that other factions of the sport does.

What the sport offers is an avenue to learn as an American that we don’t always dominate, we can not just throw our money around and expect that this will produce a champion.

The Olympic Games is about building international relations as it is about winning a medal. At this point in time in our history that is what the focus needs to be just as much as winning.

I served my country in the armed forces. When I got out of the service I went back to racing my boat. I have traveled to and met people from nations that the US has at one point in history been in conflict with. Instead of meeting in a hostile situation we meet as fellow athletes.

This is the point. The Olympic Games has been deemed by the United Nations as a part of the peace keeping process. The issue is not that the US has no champions it is that the people that the US is depending on to win a medal do not have the understanding of what it means to be an ambassador for this nation. That is what a person is that is an Olympic representative.

I have gotten the opertunity to watch women from nations like the Islamic Republic of Iran and compete for the first time at World Cup events. Many of my fellow athletes from the US watched and sneered as these women raced because in their eyes those women could not compete due to a lack of skill. When I saw the ladies from the IRI compete I saw three heros. I could see this where my fellow athletes could not because I knew what it took to get those women there was a sacrifice that went beyond what occurred in training. The opertunity for those women to compete was facilitated by the efforts made from my fellow soldiers.

What I don’t think most people realize about international sport is that is not just about the boat or the time. The point is that nations are represented period.

Not a soul likely cares that I have after returning from serving this country as a uniformed member of the armed services am racing now at a top level. No one cares until a medal is won. Here is my question for everyone if the Olympic Games is intended to be a part of the peace keeping process does the US really deserve to have medalists?
Is our nation a nation that really does what is needed to create real peaceful relationships?
In peacetime it is possible for resources to go for such efforts. The EU has the luxury of sending government supported athletes to these events. The soldiers in the EU get to serve as athletes. I’ll tell you this right now that is not a luxury granted to our troops until we are injured beyond repair doing our jobs in the service defending Freedom!

Let me first thank you for your service to our country! Good for you for returning to racing after your time in the military. No doubt that’s part of why you have such a grounded perspective in what the Olympics and international competition are all about — something that’s lost in a haze of wins and losses for many of the rest of us. I remember watching the Iranian women making their debut! Was that at the Deep Creek Nationals in, say, 2007?

Do we know each other?

I always thought it was so interesting that some European athletes, as you reference, have been able to serve in the military as training athletes. You’re right — definitely NOT the case in the United States!

Fair question, but building your initial answer/article on ignorance and the premise that “our rivers are to good” for kayakers to be bothered with slalom is so off the mark of the heart of the issue. The majority of other folks who have bothered to comment here should give you a much better picture of what’s really going on.

Rob, first of all, thank *you* for “bothering to comment here.” I’m sorry you think I’m off the mark. There have been a number of factors discussed here in the comments and in the online discussion this post has generated. Perhaps you could elaborate more on which particular factors you think are most important?

Is it the case that the kids have really earned the opertunity to be sport ambassadors for peace?

Last year I watched as the sport governing body had the audacity to send no vets to the para games in the para canoe event after the Veterans administration had granted hundreds of thousands of dollars for this purpose over a decade.

Most of that money went not to produce veterans capable of being elite Para sport represenitives. Instead three women who had not served in the armed forces period were pushed up the chain because it was believed that these individuals would medal!

Let me state this. That was a basic issue of integrity. In the case of vets and the para games it was right that a vet should be a representative and the fact that much was given and little was done was not ok. Until these things are addressed pondering about whose child is the prize pea does not need to even come into the spectrum of thought.

I have heard for years how much the sport organization lacks funding. I must state that the Veterans Administration gave ample funding to the sport governing body. The issue in that case was not that funds did not exist. The issue was that integrity with the use of the funds was absent.

These are basic issues that before it can be contemplated who will win or lose have to be done correctly.

If we lived in Switzerland where soldiers take thier weapons home with them then ok the money that the federal government authorized for the purpose of createing an avenue for health and healing for the large population of soldiers could be disposed of at the convince of the sport NGB.

We live in the USA and in the USA our soldiers have provisions made for them. When those provisions are flat out wasted and not utilized for the intended earmarked purpose then this is an issue.

The kids that play sport will go to the Olympics or not. That really does not matter.

However, when there are guys sitting at the VA hospital not able to get needed treatment for service connected conditions due to an overburdened system then the sport not training or recruiting vets effectively is wrong!

I flat out do not feel that the funds granted by he VA for vets should go to anything but this purpose. The VA is not a charity it is the arm of the federal government that was intended to help rehabilitate and transition the veteran community. Note there is not a gold medalist association that is an office of the federal government and this organization has certianly not granted canoe and kayak any funds.

I started out slalom kayaking in the 90’s and while I still kayak a lot now I’d have to chase the spiders out of my old race boat before I could use it. I never really thought much about why I don’t race anymore or even paddle that boat but I think your article makes a really interesting point about the abundance of paddling available to us here and how that affects where we go in the sport. The only time I really paddle gates anymore is during times of low water when other options are scarce. This is an interesting idea about why we are not that strong in the international slalom scene. Thanks for sharing.

I’m a ww kayaker from Korea. I really enjoyed reading your interesting articles.
If possible, I would like to post your article on our kayak club’s forum to share with my friend Are you okay with that?

Back in 1972 I recall a conversation with the head coach of UK Olympic sailing. He predicted that when canoe slalom went Olympic that many competitors would leave the sport… The reason is that competition would just be too tough in the Olympic disciplines and if you weren’t in the squad that was receiving the money and the coaching and the access to the new artificial courses, well best to move over and do something else. With GoPro technology giving publicity to other areas of the sport… that was it.

Yeah, I heard a lot of people making similar claims about the Olympic movement actually being bad for the sport, which I allude to the in the post. They were basically making the argument, as you say, that it only exacerbates the difference between the haves and the have-nots. There’s no more disappearing for a year into the Okefenoke Swamp, poking your head up at a few training camps, then landing on the podium at the Olympics, a la Jamie McEwan in 1972. I agree about the advent of GoPro changing things. I’m not quite sure how I think it relates to slalom, but I’m sure it’s having some effect.

From someone who was actually there, dont tell people that we didnt have a single boat in mens kayak final when we had 2. We had 5 out of 16 boats in finals. Bug, sage (k1), tyler (k1 and c1), and josh. Thats 31%!

Micajah, I’m talking about the U-23 class, not the Junior class. As for your last question, I’d turn it back around on you: how does the sport grow without taking honest stock of the issues that it faces?

Kayaking is a “sport” you do much more than that thing of “sports” that you watch. Hero’s are far less important than personal experience.

Whether your thing is slalom, creek boating, rodeo or wild water (downriver), whitewater kayaking is a wonderful pursuit. There have been remarkable paddlers who have come up in America, as in Europe, (and BTW there is a lot more whitewater in Europe than the author seems to know about).

The real variance is that the business of selling plastic boats has given an incentive to promote poly whitewater boats, and by extention the “stars” who use them.

The fact remains, though that slalom racing is a tremendous foundation for skills in all forms of whitewater. It’s not automatic in the cross over but it does create a propensity for success. Many normal paddlers would do very well for themselves both to learn, and by trying, respect the tremendously high skills that some paddlers bring to it through their dedicstion. The author does understand that, but probably not the distance many other whitewater paddlers have from racing and it’s value.

I’m not really sure how to take the article. On the event he watches, my take is that there is great promise and dedication among the American Jrs. It is a disorganized sport in America which can still provide a great springboard to the world stage. We as a whole, don’t pay enough attention and we should pay more. But the sport is also separated from its base. Boats in SL really are not appropriate for some forms of whitewater. Downriver racing is a lost orphan on account of the IOC. Organizationally I am not even sure who and how the sport is organized a ion promoted in the USA.

But it continues thanks to the dedication of a community that need to work yogether, as much as possible. Participation is real and individuals are dedicating big parts of their lives to it.

Let’s respect them for that and try to make things better. Paddlers need to work together in order to be safe as well as to succeed. Applause for our youth is much more important than criticism. Clearly the author knows slalom. I don’t think this is sour grapes, but I do think it aggravandizes other parts of the sport perhaps beyond what is deserved.

Kayaking is a`wonderful sport in so many ways. Accolades to all who challenge themselves. Our youth in particular deserve our respect and support. Pretty sure that they can blow out 99% of the people who might read any of these comments.

Typing on a tablet, I can’t even see the letters. The server’s time is off unless, by chance, you are in Newfoundland. Still was late I recall. Best to comment with a real keyboard and laptop.

Used to love paddling in New England. Fun Races. Fun Rivers (Hudson at 12.5 ft). Recall going to a race on the Androscogin in about ’83. If memory holds. McCormack (sp?) 1st. EJ 2nd. No racer, but enthusiast, I, 3rd. I am sure there were not two pages of results, but there were paddlers from all around.
Racing was always a nice way for the sport (aka community) to come together. Rapid River across the lake was also fun. We took a war canoe there towing 14 whitewater boats then paddled the Rapid for 2 days in a row.

I completely agree that due to our surplus of rivers, people, sports, etc, it makes is difficult for slalom to grow in the US. I have two issues with your article, the first being that no kayak man made the finals. After reading your article it is clear you have been a part of the kayaking world for more than a decade, but seem to have taken a decade or two off. For every country there is and ebb and flow of great athletes and ones you’ll never speak of. For example, next year Jess Fox ages out of u23 and it is no longer certain Australia will medal at the worlds. Do you think this is a failed or flawed system? When you take one year and use it as an example without any regard to the past you lose all validity. This was the best year we have ever had in the junior class possibly since it began. 5 juniors in the finals is nothing but an example of how much we have improved and the potential in the near future. Only three years ago we had the U23 World Champion, someone that is looked up to in every country there is a slalom paddler. So my biggest question, and it really is not rhetorical, is did you choose to ignore these things for the sake of you article or did you just not know?

Secondly lets take Eric and Dane Jackson who are certainly examples for young paddlers. How often are we adding names to the tiny list that is extreme kayaking or freestyle? Recreation dominates kayaking in the US and few people attain a higher level whether that be extreme, freestyle, or slalom. You mention the extreme races that bring Europeans to the US, but who is constantly winning them? Its not the US or the Euros. Sick line has been dominated by Kiwi’s for as long as I have watched and they have no shortage of rivers. The day Sam Sutton comes the the Green is the day that he takes that glass trophy back to NZ.

A huge problem is tradition in the US. You mention Hearn, Lugbill, and a ton of others. I will bet a lot of money that 75% of these people have no idea who I am, and I haven’t seen them once at a selection race. Dana Chladek and Jamie McEwan are the only ones who helped to keep the sport moving forward. So when none of these “heroes” are left it is up to the young athletes like us to make new ones.

Hey Tyler, Thanks for commenting. First of all, congratulations on some strong racing — you qualified for the finals in both Junior K-1 and C-1! That’s really, really impressive — particularly in light of the tremendous financial cost required simply to arrive at the start line. That you and your teammates can do as well as you did, despite the general apathy in the United States toward slalom, is remarkable. Perhaps that was a bit harsh of me to say the US team “didn’t do very well” simply because they didn’t win any medals. I hope you all keep racing as you age into the senior ranks! My intent was not to criticize hardworking and deserving athletes, but only to point to the dearth of medals the US has won in slalom in the recent past and to suggest that if there were less of a divide between slalom and the general boating public, we’d win more.

You mention tradition. Do you see that as being different in other countries? How else do you see your own entry into the sport (through a club? a program?) as being different than your European counterparts’?

Hey Alden, sorry for taking so long to respond. Some people who read your article saw it as malicious due to personal reasons. I am not offended by you characterization of the results because it is just inaccurate. The nature of our sport makes medaling so difficult the strongest showing you can pick from is the finals. This recent race we had 5 junior finalists which is unprecedented in US history.

I happened into the sport by chance. There was no slalom program in Charlotte, just some old racers that helped me alot to the point where I was lucky enough to start training with the senior team. The only successful club in the recent years in terms of taking new kids with no relation to slalom like myself is Dana’ s club in DC and at this point there aren’t any new kids coming out of it.

In my opinion most of the great European paddlers and coaches are still heavily involved, or at least enough of them to do the trick. Richard Fox is a high ranking coach in France, Myriam is head coach in Aus and responsible for a strong women’s team. Martikan is still competing and has passed the torch on to Venus. Benus is coached by the great Slovak c1 who preceded Martikan. Double Olympic medalist Pierpaulo Ferrazzi is still a coach in the Italian federation and Molmenti has recently become head coach. Helmut Oblinger is now head coach in Austria. Many, many lesser known paddlers are coaching all over the world giving back to the sport. We don’t have that.

Hi Tyler, I appreciate your addition to the debate, no matter when it comes. Thanks for weighing in. It’s really interesting to hear about your entry to the sport. No slalom program in Charlotte!!?? Wow . . . that pretty much captures all of our systemic problems in a nutshell, doesn’t it? World class facility, high-population area, history of big races, local Olympians . . . and no slalom program. Amazing! (But hardly surprising.)

Great to hear your perspective about the lack of coaches and coaching. I agree, though I take slight issue with your previous post, when you write: “You mention Hearn, Lugbill, and a ton of others . . . Dana Chladek and Jamie McEwan are the only ones who helped to keep the sport moving forward.” While it warms my heart to hear you mention the late Jamie McEwan, most of the others *have* kept the sport moving forward in some capacity. For example, Lecky Haller and Davey Hearn were both active youth coaches for some time (both coached me!), Fritz Haller was an Olympic coach, Cathy Hearn was a national team canoe coach (who mentored Benn Fraker among others), Scott Shipley’s whitewater park design record speaks for itself, E.J.’s all around record does too, Joe Jacobi has coached and was head of USACK, etc, etc. While I do think it’s important to have high-level former paddlers present as coaches and mentors, it does seem to me that many other countries have something more than that going on — perhaps they’re able to retain and to utilize ex-racers’ knowledge without relying solely on it.

To that end, I am really interested in the European model of slalom clubs (like Kanu Schwaben Augsburg) and why these aren’t as pervasive in the United States. In fact, a few days ago I wrote up a whole blog post about it — sort of a follow-up to this post. Check it out and let me know what you think!

I enjoyed the article, & the banter about the evolution of the sport in the US. I don’t usually contribute to these types of conversations, but I can’t help myself on this one…. Very interesting perspectives & huge props to the Jrs. At the worlds this year- tyler/sage etc. It was the jr worlds in Norway- when I was 15- a trip / event that changed my life forever. Not only did I get my ass handed to me by the Europeans (after winning jr nationals by a long shot), but I learned about humanity & what a clean river looks like. I’ve enjoy many aspects of the sport in the past 30 years, and have a stead fast commitment in my personal & professional life to nudge things forward. Using slalom, wild water, ocean surfing, freestyle,& extreme racing as skill development was critical in my expedition, production, business / education /philanthropic / public interest pursuits. I own a kayak school / raft company in Oregon & do quite a bit of non profit work as well. The sport, & community is amazing, brilliant, dedicated, & international. All things I have grown to love. As a matter of commitment I have acquired 12 slalom boats at my shop in Oregon City, & while they usually only get used at a citizen race or two/year & at some of our kids camps (serving over 1000 kids) during the summer, the goal is to get some permenant gates up so we can develop more talent. Not everyone is going to take to slalom, but we do have an Olympic gold medalist that lives in our state (Oliver fix) & he has come up to coach a few clinics- our campground got shot up at the last one & he works as a waiter in Ashland (FYI). I see all the artificial courses as more opportunity for people to be exposed to the sport & it will take more dedicated / knowledgeable folks to help make those opportunities accessible / available for the next generation. The current depth in the jr ranks are case in point that this is happening- there are many avenues for kids to plug in- now more than ever. It’s a bummer Wausau isn’t hosting world cups anymore (jr. Worlds in ’94 was the last big race I did there)…and I think that was a community that embraced the sport for a long time- carried the torch through the champion international race series, help pull in some corporate sponsors like the distributor for coke who did more than write a check- he helped lead and direct volunteers & home stays that made Wausau an accessible & welcoming venue. I have seen some big citizen clinics (like the ones Colin runs) & jackson / world kayak sponsors so it’s not like the course has been moth balled, it just doesn’t have the total community integration & big slalom races like it used to complete with local small business, leadership & sponsorship- I don’t think the USACK drop in slalom funding has helped either. Moving things to OKC was a short term win, but dried up funding & no corporate partner that wants to help put on a national race series – hurts more than helps. it’s always been a small sport & for the lucky few that get to compete at the highest level- you know who you are – & you understand the immense accomplishment & satisfaction that comes with it. The benefits & intense development of self discipline / self talk / visualization / ambassadorship – all things that will serve in all areas of your future life. slalom is a gateway for this & I credit much of my success in the sport / longevity & even many of my top accomplishments to what I learned in slalom (yet they weren’t slalom podiums). And no doubt without whitewater slalom being an Olympic sport, I am not sure the credibility would have been there when needed in academic or political environments – which has spilled over into my professional life quite a bit. Whitewater slalom is an awesome sport & the fact that Dane jackson hasn’t chosen to compete in it doesn’t mean much (to me anyway). He is following in his dads footsteps & the family business (from the industry side- not the competitive swimming / slalom background), & helping the jackson brand dominate the kayak market- great work if you are born into it & probably a good idea as the school of life / business can be a better teacher than higher education in some circumstances. I find it ironic that the photo chosen for this article has a Dane booking with a slalom pole in the frame (from NFC 2017). Slalom gives our sport legitimacy and anyone that has done it understands why. As an olympic sport, it is a pinnacle discipline, & we all aught to keep paddling & either get to, organize, coach, or otherwise support a local slalom race to continue to build the base.

“Slalom gives our sport legitimacy… as an Olympic sport it is a pinnacle discipline.. .. ”

Is this a joke???
The sport of kayaking was born out of a love for rivers, traveling down them, it existed before slalom and it will exist quite nicely whether slalom is included into the Olympics or if Slalom disappears completely. Creeking was hot in the late 80’s, Freestyle ruled the late 90’s and early 2000’s then Creek Racing rose up strong and all the while creek-boating and expedition style paddling continue to amaze ALL paddlers – and will for generations to come. There is no type of paddling that is critical to all others – we don’t need Olympics – we don’t even need global competition circuits and national teams or gov’t funding … if there are rivers, there will be kayaking.

I’ll defend slalom as a sport all day – just as I’ll defend squirt boating or freestyle or SUP’s relevance to having fun on the water but this ”elitist” condescending attitude about it as a ”pinnacle” is likely what encourages others to drag it off the pedestal. What has Slalom provided to the river-running world since the bent-shaft paddle and stern squirt? I’d say 98% of US paddlers are completely un-influenced by slalom yet choose to go kayak for the fun of it based on other avenues of exposure.
If Sage wins dual Olympic golds, or if she medals in the Men’s class – perhaps this will change for a moment, but I would guess US paddlers would be more impacted if she kick-flipped Sahalie, solo’d Stikine or hit the first double airscrew. Slalom is a great sport – so much positive to say about the skills it builds and those who pursue it! But it’s just one cool competitive avenue among many – no more ‘vital’ to the rest of paddlesports than SUP or OC-1 or squirt boating. To me, it will always be more impressive to do something NO ONE has done before – to set a course record, discover and complete a first D, invent a trick or run the biggest waterfall – than it is to go faster or score more points than the rest. Freestyle and Creek racing are sideshows too, but more in line to the progressive side of kayaking – where new rivers, new skills, and never before seen accomplishments are there for this next generation’s taking. How can any medal – no matter how shiny – compete?
Clay